Where the Crusher draws strength in devastating overheads and protection through heavy Carapace armor; the Plaguebearer draws strength in melee attacks that apply Corruption when health is damaged and protection through gifts of Nurgle.
Gifts of Nurgle
Vile Presence:Periodically, Plaguebearers grant nearby allies Cranial Corruption .
Plaguebearers are very resistant to stagger, yet slow and lumbering. “When strikes do land upon Plaguebearers they seem to have little effect, for the minions of Nurgle feel no pain, and shrug off what should be lethal strokes”
Melee attacks from Plaguebearers inflict Corruption damage. “Each Plaguebearer wields a rusted blade called a Plaguesword that corrupts flesh in an instant”
Plaguebearers are very resistant to ranged attacks, headshots give no bonus damage. “Should a foe endure the stench and not be struck down, they will find their own blows hampered by swarming flies.”
When not attacked for a period of time, Plaguebearers slowly regain lost health “The body of a Plaguebearer appears weak and fragile, but their constant exposure to the vilest concoctions of Nurgle’s cauldron has made them unnaturally resilient”
Tbh Plaguebearers should come with multiple variants, each taking roles that the Ogryn do.
Thoughtfully Plaguebearers don’t have a machine gun in lore, but they do have a ranged attack on the Sniveller, where it sneezes on the enemies of Nurgle.
Resistance to Stagger yes, but immunity I’d be against it, maybe having only a few select weapons have the ability to stagger them (Like THammer, Crusher, most Ogryn weapons…)
You’re going to have to triple that hit mass for it to matter with the current state of the game’s cleave values. Carapace by default can’t be cleaved which is why crushers can sit at 12.5 and be fine, but a lot of weapons (especially on ogryn) will be knocking these guys out two at a time.
Stagger immunity is too much, but with the current state of balance it would probably need it anyway.
I think in terms of gameplay Plaguebearers can work fine. I think we’d need a significant lore shift and for things to get a lot worse to justify their presence however.
Thus far we’ve got Spawn, Plague Ogryn, and Daemonhosts, but these are all corrupted material creatures. The only actual Daemon we have is the Beast of Nurgle, which is essentially a large Warp puppy, the type of thing a cult might choose and be able to summon in some small numbers.
Sentient Daemon infantry however would tend to imply a dramatically worse situation. In the Siege of Vraks for example, Daemons don’t bother showing up until untold millions of guardsmen and much of the planetary population are dead, and not until many years after the arrival of both loyalist and traitor Astartes and even Titan Legions. For them to openly walk Tertium, they’d probably be owed some story advancement and the situation would have to worsen dramatically.
In term of mechanics, I don’t think a Plaguebearer should be immune to CC and stagger, they may not feel pain, but they can certainly have their incessant counting thrown off and get distracted trying to remember where they were at, maybe resistant to these things but not fully immune. Corruption damage from melee attacks is perfect and absolutely fitting. Being non-corporeal damage sponges, no headshot bonus sounds good, but I don’t see the purpose of the 3x melee rear damage, if a Plaguebearer can take a noggin shot no problem, I don’t think a knife to the back should do any better, I’d just go full sponge. Regaining lost health is a solid concept.
Yeah, dregs need more enemy type, scab literally has more enemy types, which leads to situation when game seed game with dregs only, there’s tons of gunners, shooter and ragers.
In fairness the faction in Vt2 is Norsca more so than Nurglite cult/Warrior of Chaos.
There aren’t even any Daemon. Tbh the one thing that I would say it’s a shame we never got there would be Skin Wolves as monster and Forsakens as big elites
I love Peter Jacksons early movies they are hilarious! Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) is probably my favorite, speaking of Braindead I always think of this scene when I play zealot
Demon infantry just wont be done, it would completely change the scale of war lore wise and also the swords the plaguebears have swords that are extremely OP, so i would imagine some sort of plague mechanic if they were in this as infantry, although i think a plaguebearer riding a rotfly as a boss is much more likely (i imagine it would be a mission specific boss, as a flying enemy in this game would suck so much if it wasnt in a area specifically crafted for it.)
Why not? Every class has a plethora of crazy strong stagger options available, why is it bad to have one really dangerous Demon who appears more rarely - unlike Crusher cabals? If not immunity, then Plague Ogryn level stagger resist.
Plaguebearers are Lesser Daemons, Nurgle’s rank and file. It doesn’t take much to create one, but plenty already exist in the Warp. It’s a matter of creating a Warp Rift, which is not something that is beyond the Cult of Admonition’s ability to do.
lore or not, at this point after a 2 year nurgle advertising campaign i’d expect some pure nurgle enemies in the game.
there are games i play for lore and there are games i play for action.
delicious as darktides game flow is, i pick “rule of cool” over demon stats every time.
in case of our protagonist i get the “no space marine” approach to leave as many doors open as possible.
on the other hand that shouldnt restrict us too much in terms of qualified enemy roster.
so few new full on nurgle-snot levels filled with plague bearers, nurglings, rot flies and whatever the cauldron spits out, would be much appreciated.
they let us back onto the mourningstar already after warning us about infection and the commissar thats going to visit us in this case.
nice lore-backdrop but unless (and emprah forbid) they add a fail-timer to reach max infection, its a hollow threat to somehow give it some “weight”
like jumping around the core of a nuclear reactor ingame in your underwear, no one would “believe” that crap otherwise
I agreemwith you, i have always wanted so absolute sickness and fecundity in this game, expeacially now that admontion did whatever they try to do to rondin, i just dont where they couldnt put plaguebearers yet, also i love your idea about the sicknesses/ plague, sorry if,the other post came off a bit heavy handed
